SAR-21 vs G-36

last SG · 2002-05-21T00:50:00+00:00

U mean u r still using SAR 80 ? During my NSF days, SAR 80 was the standard issue for logistic units but the last I heard it was gradually phased out. Reason...

Shotgun SG

It is because I understand the difficulty of suppressing infantry, that I feel that we need more firepower in SAF sections. I agree with u, but my stand is that accuracy is a basic skill an infantryman should have. Being able to suppress with accuracy, really makes suppressive fire more efficient.

I'm sorry I confused you with the "wedge." I don't know what you call it, but I termed it a "wedge" from the way it looked. Friendly fire? I'm sure with a proper contact drill, it can be avoided. The section does not engage in a wedge formation, but moves in it. Upon contact, like I said, the flank that sees it shoots, the flank that doesn't, moves. Essentially, upon contact, you will see a shortened "LINE."

With a larger section, it will minimize the number of sections required to engage the enemy. Though in numbers, it might not make much differences, but it makes it much easier when you have to form "patched" units in the middle of a war. Larger numbers, fewer units to patch and personnel to reassign.

want to know SG

How do you advance directly into enemy machinegun without getting killed? Don't you think it is suicidal to advance directly into a machinegunner. Very dangerous. Sorry but since you are the expert. Can explain to me how do you do it without getting killed. Question

dkhoo SG

Fire and movement, my friend -- bread and butter of infantry around the world. You can see a little bit of it in Saving Private Ryan if you watch carefully. The key is to only come out of cover for less than 3 seconds at a time. This is the time it takes for a soldier to engage you accurately with his weapon. Even a machinegun can only shoot one thing at a time. So one group rushes forward from one set of cover to another within 3 seconds, while the other two groups stay in cover and lay down accurate covering fire. Then when that group is in cover, another group rushes. While you are in cover, roll or crawl if you can, so that you emerge from cover from an unexpected point. If fire is heavy or you are close to the enemy, individual men rush forward in "random" patterns rather than a group at a time to make it even harder for an enemy to engage you.

That is why accurate fire is devastating. An enemy who can engage you accurately faster than 3 seconds can pin you down completely. This is also why rifle range targets only pop out for a few seconds, so that you get realistic shooting experience.

If there is no cover, like when you are assaulting a fortified position, there are a few ways to do it. You basically want to pin them down with tremendous firepower and overwhelm them with numbers. Firepower takes many forms, including preparatory artillery and air strikes, close air support, mortar fire or even friendly armor (which also provides cover to hide behind). What you have available to you determines what you do. Since machineguns are organic to the platoon and recoilless rifles to the company, those are trained with most often. You set up at a distance overlooking the objective and pour fire continuously into the enemy's heavy weapons, so that he cannot return fire with them at all. Then you rush him with numbers. This is a lot harder and more dangerous than when there is cover, of course. That's why it's a fortified objective after all.

Hope this answers your questions about infantry tactics.

CX SG

that happenned cos the US uses AP rounds intended to pierce body armour... problem? the enemy didn't use body armour so the projectile went straight through them without doing much damage.

a normal 5.56 would bore right through and make a hell of a mess in the enemy's innards...

Shotgun SG

dkhoo, according to your reply, it strengthens my point on a 9 man section. On the offense, the 9 man section will lay down more firepower on the enemy, and can advance with greater numbers at a time. Second, on the defense, you have more guns to engage the enemy with. Like you said, machine gun or not, it still can only shoot 1 fella at a time. With 9 man, or a 3 man fire team, you can engage more people at a time.

I'm not saying that the Current SAF section is wrong our lousy. I believe its good, and effective. It just can be improved to make it devastating instead of effective. Even after taking losses, there won't be so many units to patch up.

bcoy SG

Have to agree - even my CO once said the our infantry section are lightweight, in conventional warfare.
Would prefer adding a 2nd MG to each platoon. But I guess it depends on the terrain and if the infantry would be given some form of light armoured support vehicle in future.

Anyway - at the Israeli forums, there is a similar topic, some of the points are very similar to what has been brought up here -
http://www.waronline.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40

dkhoo SG

Well, if I can't convince you, I can't convince you. Very Happy

That said, I do think that the current infantry sections suffer from "peacetime training disease". They look better in training than larger sections -- easy to command, well-coordinated, responsive, fast moving, etc. However, I sometimes have the bad feeling that they might not do so well in war, since peacetime training can never accurately simulate the effects of casualties. I have agreed all along that despite the advantages of smaller sections, they easily become ineffective when too many casualties are taken. This is hard to see in training, making them look better than they perhaps really are. In war, reliability and robustness are important attributes for your weapons, battle plans, units, etc to have, but it is hard to test these things in peacetime. You always have to plan for "Murphy's Law", and 7 men gives you too little space for the inevitably fuckups.

Oh well, we'll have to see. At least we'll probably outnumber potential enemies enough to send platoons to destroy enemy sections. Cool As long as a section does not run home to mama after taking a few casualties, screwing up the whole platoon, I'll be happy. Very Happy I also think that our junior officers and NCOs are smart enough to create ad hoc units if necessary -- it happens all the time in NS.

Shotgun SG

Those Israelis are nuts. To have each rifleman carry two weapons, M-4 and Mp5s. Need to carry more ammo, extra weight. Crazy. And 2 ATGMs per squad..... Maybe its just the scale of their theatre of operations.

For SG, at most i think we need to have a few specialised ATGM section. Probably a 3 man section or 2 man, better still.

Hehe, Dkhoo, I guess I'm not here to be "convinced" but rather to convince. Really, on the paper everything looks nice. But under war-time conditions, 7men-sections will become very ineffecient very quickly. The best solution would be adding 2 additional men. OR start training sections to be able to merge together forming reinforced sections should one take casualties to render it ineffective. That is, a section that has taken 3 casualties, eg, has 4 men remaining. Not very effective. That section will then join another section that is still combat capable, forming a reinforced section.

The thing about this is, ALWAYS form sections that are reinforced. Don't take 2 men, add 3 men and call it a 5 men patch section. Thats outright stupid. But its okay if you take the 2, the 3, and add another 3 to it. But still not very advisable. The idea is to minimise change, and the number of people getting to know one another. So you take 2 men, add it to a 6 or 7 men section and call it a reinforced section. SAme thing with platoons. Company level, different story since SAF inter-operates a lot, so an understrength company might actually have 2 tank platoons supporting it, so it really depends a lot. ALWAYS reinforce, not under-strength.

As for leadership, the IC of the "expired" (if thats what u wanna call it) section, will submit to the IC of the current section. Which means, the leader of the section to be "reinforced" automatically takes precendence over. I doubt that is a problem for Specs.

All this being said, finally to sum it up. A platoon that has taken damage will become an under-strengthed platoon. But it can still have 2 "reinforced" section, without undermining the platoon's operational capabilities.

philip72 SG

Have to agree. The only way we can settle this debate is under actual combat conditions. And the ONLY time any troops in the SAF has been engaged in any close to actual combat is during the Confrontation, when the Stens, the Stirlings, the Brens and SLRs were being used in a 12-man section. Any other discussion of how effective a seven or nine man section will be, would simply be guess-work. Why not look at other countries with real operational experience. I bet you will find that Singapore has one of the smallest section sizes amongst any army, with the exception of special forces units.

A note on the wounding effect and penetration power of the 5.56mm. Tests conducted back in the 80's showed that the 7.62mm does not fragment in a pig's carcass but tumble, leaving a neat tunnel with a greater diameter in the middle. the M855 and the older M193 rounds tend to fragment inside the carcass, leaving fragments travelling in different directions.

However, the GREATEST total volume of the wound left inside the carcass is the 7.62mm round. In terms of the GREATEST amount of energey dumped, the 7.62mm also came up as the winner. The exertion that a 5.56mm has greater stopping power because it fragments is only true if we compare a hollow-point 5.56mm round to a 7.62mm ball round. Hollow-points are banned under the Geneva convention.

And I know of no material that a 5.56mm ball would penetrate better than a 7.62mm ball.

A 5.56mm round is usually 4g in weight, and fired at around 900 m/s to give an energy level of aorund 1,700J. A 7.62mm round is usually 9.4g, fired at a velocity of around 850m/s to give a energy level of 3,500 J.

If you really want to have enough fire-power in a tiny seven-men section, you will have to consider at least one or two big guns that fires the 7.62mm round from a 50-round BELT, and not a magazine.

Joe Black SG

I also tend to think that having at least 1 guy in a section using a more dedicated sniper weapon of at least 7.62mm calibre would improve firepower and effectiveness of the section. The sharpshooter could also carry a secondary carbine to be use when things get a little too hot.

LeFire SG

However, the GREATEST total volume of the wound left inside the carcass is the 7.62mm round. In terms of the GREATEST amount of energey dumped, the 7.62mm also came up as the winner. The exertion that a 5.56mm has greater stopping power because it fragments is only true if we compare a hollow-point 5.56mm round to a 7.62mm ball round. Hollow-points are banned under the Geneva convention.

Whoops... minor correction there.

7.62mm round... which one? There's a lot, ranging from boat-tailed 7.62 x 39mm, Yugoslavian flat-based 7.62mm, NATO 7.62mm, SVD-type 7.62mm, etc.

The German 7.62 x 54mm NATO ones were known for causing a lot of damage, due to the lighter steel coat they use, I have heard.

The 5.56mm ball WILL fragment. Both versions, when fired from M-16's will:

1.) Under 100m : Break at the 'crimp point' where the head of the bullet is separated from the rear (that is buried in the cartridge case of an unfired round.) The back piece will fragment, the front will generally stay in 1 piece.

2.) 100 to 200m: Break into 2 at the crimp point. Both tend to stay in one piece.

3.) 200m beyond: Round generally stays in 1 piece.

Information derived from www.firearmstactical.com

LeFire SG

Generally, if you want a round capable of shooting through body armour, thick foilage and walls, the 7.62mm is for you.

For maximum wounding power, the fragmenting 5.56mm is excellent.

Btw... stopping power is misleading. The force transferred to a target when hit is no more than the force you feel as recoil.

kY|e-_-o SG

whats the difference between a full-metal jacketed bullet and a hollow point bullet anyway? FMJ vs JHP? Question

dkhoo SG

A good page comparing types of ammo is:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/bullets.htm

In general, fas.org is pretty good for all kinds of military info, though as usual it is very US biased.

The executive summary is that FMJ "ball" rounds have a projectile with a dense core surrounded by a metal jacket, producing a roughly spheroid round. These are the only rounds permitted in war. JHP rounds also have a metal jacket, but the front of the jacket is cut open, to produce a hollow point. The jacket tends to spread apart on impact, making the round wider and transferring more kinetic energy from the round to the target. These rounds have a tendency to stop inside the target rather than pass through him, and as a result have more "stopping power" but less armor penetration. The wounds caused are often horrendous, though explosive and fragmenting projectiles are even worse. They are NOT legal to be used in war, but can be used in police work, so anti-terrorist teams carry them.

dkhoo SG

I find it interesting that the sniper that until recently terrorized Washington DC was firing no more than 5.56mm ammunition from an assault rifle! (.223 calibre is 5.56mm) He fired a civilian version of an M16 and scored hits at hundreds of meters, with every hit scoring a kill. Only one target even survived to reach the hospital, but died later.

I've read reports from wars, but I am still surprised by this demonstration of the power of the 5.56mm round. If anything, this conflicts with some reports (like the US Rangers in Somalia - "Black Hawk Down" ) that claim that 5.56mm has insufficient killing power. I can see two explanations:

1. He did not use FMJ ammunition like a soldier would. If he used hollowpoints, it would make a difference.

2. He had excellent shot placement. Even an air-pistol round will kill if it strikes the correct point on your body.

Probably both explanations are important here. We cannot change our ammunition, but marksmanship is something we can certainly improve. One good shot to the chest or head is worth a dozen to the limbs or a hundred that miss.

Still impressed and extremely horrified by this display of 5.56mm power.

LeFire SG

I believe that the Rangers in Somalia were issued with 'green-tip' body-armour piercing ammo instead of normal 5.56mm ball ammo. The hordes of enemies that they faced had no body-armour to speak of.

Typical Army snafu, I've heard.

Shotgun SG

Yeah, Green-tipped. Carbide tipped round actually. I think the green is just the color coding.

Anyway, I never believed in stopping power. You are right, it is damned misleading. To me, stopping power can come in 2 varieties. Those targets wearing body armor, and those that are not. For those wearing body armor, I believe that the NATO 7.62 round has the "stopping power" and the NATO 5.56 doesn't For those without body armor, the bullet that can create the biggest, most painful wound has the stopping power.

I've read the arguement, 7.62 vs 5.56 somewhere. And they might as well not have the arguement since there wasn't a clear winner anyway.

The thing is, 7.62, has more mass and weight. Thus limited by friction, and gravity will have a greater effect on it, due to its weight. IF its fired from a weapon with not enuff muzzle velocity. However, if the weapon has great muzzle velocity, eg. sniper rifles, the greater mass and weight actually helps it to fly further and hit harder, due to various physics properties such as inertia. I'm not a physics students, so i don't really remember the rest.

The 5.56 however, has less weight and mass, and will fly and hit hard even though its fired from a weapon with average muzzle velocity. Because of the small size, what happens is that due to the rifling effect upon leaving the muzzle, the bullet travels at really high speeds and when it hits flesh, the bullet would in a sense "drill" a wound. If thats what you call fragmentation. In anycase, the wound actually closes behind the bullet as the bullet leaves a trail of vacuum behind it, and air is not able to rush in to fill the space in time. Thus leaving a very difficult and deadly wound. However, due to the lesser mass and weight of the bullet, it cannot travel as far as the 7.62 round, even if its fired from a sniper rifle chambered for a 5.56 round.

The 7.62 being a bit bigger, also requires more propellant, and thus generating a heavier recoil. Yes, AK recoil can dislocate a youngster's shoulder.

Even the Russians recognized that the 7.62 is not really effective as an assault rifle round, and have switched to a smaller 5.45 round in the AK-74.

philip72 SG

Energy equals mass multiplied by the square of velocity. A 7.62mm NATO round has more energy because it is three times as heavy and only slightly slower than the 5.56mm. A 7.62mm NATO round will stop someone in his tracks because of it's larger calibre (the greater the cross-section area, the greater the energy transfer), greater intrinsic energy, and the terminal effect of it's bullet (basically, the way the bullet tumbles in muscle tissue instead of fragmenting into smaller pieces).

The 7.62mm NATO round is designed for range. It will give a flatter trajectory than the M193 round over a distance of 800m. This "problem" (it's only a problem if you need that kind of range) is solved in the M855 round, which has a flatter trajectory out to 800m as well.

The price paid for this power and range is greater recoil and a heavier weight per round.

Of course, in terms of absolutely the greatest stopping power fired from a portable weapon, it'll be a 12.7mm NATO, which will stop an elephant dead in its tracks, drill through an engine block, and penetrate concrete walls... but no sane man is going to drag a Barette M82 through the jungle.

Shotgun SG

Include the spin of the round and you might have more to think about.

philip72 SG

Just read an article in Oct 2002's issue of Jane's International Defence Review entitled "Small arms ammunition advances bit by bit."

I want to share with you an interesting portion from that article: "There have been several reports from troops in Afghanistan regarding the lack of lethality of the SS109/M855 cartridge, particularly when it is fired from an M4 (US) or M8 (Canadian) carbine. This was also observed in Somalia. For the SS109/M855 to achieve lethality, it must be moving at a velocity of over 732m/s when it strikes its target. At this velocity and above, the bullet penetrates a short distance and then begins to yaw as its spinning slows and it tends to return to its normal stable state, which is base forward. As the bullet yaws, it comes apart at the cannelure, scattering fragments and causing a relatively large wound channel. In practical terms, this translates to approximately 200m with a bullet fired from an M16 or similar rifle with a 558mm barrel at approximately 914m/s.

"When fired from a carbine, however, the SS109/M855 bullet leaves the barrel with a velocity of only about 790m/s. Therefore by the time it has travelled downrange only 50m, it has already dropped below the velocity threshold for enhanced would ballistics. The net effect is that troops equipped with M4 or M8 carbines are using weapons that are only marginally more effective ballistically than a 0.22 Magnum at anything other than close-quarters battle distances."

Just goes to show that "advances" in the field of arms and ammunition may not necessarily be progress!

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